This is a discussion on 2004 WRX won't start with car in park, works in neutral within the General Maintenance, Troubleshooting & Accidents. forums, part of the Tech & Modifying & General Repairs category; I have a 2004 WRX, no performance mods/110k miles/automatic trans.
I do, however, have an automatic starter.
This problem started ...

2004 WRX won't start with car in park, works in neutral

I have a 2004 WRX, no performance mods/110k miles/automatic trans.
I do, however, have an automatic starter.

This problem started out of the blue about a 2 years ago, I would try to use my keyless ignition and the headlights would turn on, car would try to start, then couldn't. It does not happen all the time, and I've yet to pinpoint when it will happen/won't.

After dealing with my car alarm/autostart installers, we replaced the unit, but the problem persisted.

The only fix is, I can put my key in a turn it forward, with foot on brake, put the car in neutral (this is sometimes difficult), then once car is in neutral, I can start the car. This solves the problem every time.

You could try disconnecting the park switch and see if that makes a difference and if not then short across the connector to complete the circuit and then try that. If either one of these works then you have found the problem.

vBulletin Message

Errors

The following errors occurred with your submission

Quick Reply

Register Now

Please enter the name by which you would like to log-in and be known on this site.If you do not want to register, fill this field only and the name will be used as user name for your post.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Email Address:

Please enter a valid email address for yourself. We strongly suggest that you stay away from using aol, yahoo, msn, and hotmail accounts. Sometimes the mail server blocks the emails from our server. As a result you will not receive any notifications including the confirmation email.

Log-in

User Name:

Password:

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.